Laura's Shower

Brook, Cristy, and I had the honor of throwing Laura's baby shower for the church. We have a group of girls who have hosted the last 3 or 4 baby showers we have had and they have done an amazing job so when it came time for us "old schoolers" to have our turn we found ourselves under a little bit of pressure. We started thinking about what we should do or not do and threw out the ideas that back 10 years ago would have been so great but not so much now. We decided to go all out and do fine dining. We needed to find some fancy dishes and decor. I was in charge of this. I had a thought to check thrift stores and some flea markets but I was running out of time. I started praying for free dishes. (and hey, we are not afraid to ask for free stuff these days!) Mrs. Calfee told me that Maw had a ton of dishes that she collects and that she would love for us to use them. I had forgotten that she collected them. I was so excited when we got up there and found so many things to choose from. She showed me her milk glass collection and it was beautiful. I decided this is what we would go with. She had the punch bowl, candles, and other platters to match it. So leave it to me to bring up death in this situation. As we were packing these dishes up I asked Maw (and before i realized what was coming out of my mouth) I said something to the affect of "so has anyone claimed these when you go and see the big man upstairs" - which could have been taken- when you kick that bucket i want those dishes you hear. As I have analyzed this in my head over and over that is the only thing it sounds like to me. She was so gracious and said no would you like to have these. Yes! So my free dishes were beautiful for the shower. We needed to find some thank you notes that did not cost us a ton of money. So we began to pray for free thank you cards. Cristy J went into target and found some cards that were damaged. (the boxes were damaged not the cards themselves) She grabbed them up and went to the customer service desk and started asking how much she could get them for. After a little process of negotiating she walked away with two boxes of really cute thank you cards for 6.00 total. Now I realize these were not free but God never said He would give it to us I just felt I needed to ask and His favor was with us. The next day I had to buy flowers. I went in to walmart and just before walking in I prayed that God would help me to find just what we need for a great price. He did! I found several bundles of flowers that were half off and ended up spending 2.50 a bundle. I was so excited! I called Brook and Cristy and shared my excitement. I am sure the people in Walmart thought I was a fruitcake and thought they were too because you could hear them squealing through the phone. It did not matter to me one bit. Cristy J had an idea to get boots and put flowers in them and make it a little cowboy theme. She even pulled some bamboo from her back yard and we used that with flowers. I was sweating it a little bit when Mrs. Calfee came in and saw the bamboo sitting in the floor and said what are you going to do with those weeds! I told her we were going to put them in boots for Laura's shower. The look on her face was so cute. I went over to Brooks on the Friday before and we spent the day getting everything set up. Cristy joined us by phone for most of the day but it was so much fun. We set the flowers up in the boots and it made the cutes arrangements. We got a picture so I will upload those a little later. The shower was beautiful and we were all really pleased at how everything turned out. Laura said she really enjoyed. Now either she really enjoyed or she did not want to hurt us old timer's feelings.